It is a service that allows us to print by paying a monthly fee:
Rather than owning a cartridge and printing when we need to, HP Instant Ink requires us to pay monthly in order to print a specified number of pages.
Is it worth paying another bill every month?
We can contract 4 different rates depending on the volume we plan to print:
Regardless of whether you print in color or black and white, if the printed sheet is full as in a photo, or it is printed a single line, any page that comes out of our printer counts towards the monthly total.
Price-wise, a subscription-based ink service looks quite attractive. But if we pay attention to the fine print, dealing with HP Instant Ink rules and regulations can outweigh the convenience of a low monthly fee.
What you should know before hiring it:
Regardless of whether you print in color or black and
white, if the printed sheet is full as in a photo, or it is printed a single
line, any page that comes out of our printer counts towards the monthly total.
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- A printed page may not be what you expect
- HP defines a printed page as “a page on which the printer places any amount of ink.” For better and for worse:
- We all have in mind how inexpensive it is to print a full color A4 photo, filling the entire sheet with ink. And it’s true, but if we print a page with just one line of text, that also counts toward the monthly total.
- How many full color A4 pages do you usually print, how many of the normal ones?
- We must therefore take into account each page that is sent to the printer: the unexpected and involuntary impressions, the additional pages that magically appear when printing a ticket to a concert, a train ticket or a cooking recipe … all printed pages count for the monthly computation.
- We must be careful, the monthly payment shoots up when printing more than contracted
When we exceed the estimated monthly number of pages, HP Instant Ink charges us € 1 for every 15 pages on the occasional plan, € 1 for every 20 pages on the moderate plan and € 1 for every 25 pages on the frequent plan. Update: HP Instant Ink charges us € 1 for every 10 pages in the free and occasional plan, € 1 for every 15 pages in the moderate plan and € 1 for every 20 pages in the frequent and professional plan.
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Do not fool yourself. It does not charge you € 1 for each package of 10, 15 or 20 printed pages. This might seem like a bargain next to what it costs you for a page with ink cartridges you bought, but … it costs you an additional € 1 whether you print all 10, 15 or 20 pages or if you print just one page too many.
- And paying € 1 for a single page that does not fit inside the package is more expensive (and a lot) than when you buy the ink cartridges.
- If your printing needs are variable, investing in ink cartridges makes more sense than a monthly fee. You can print what you need without having to be aware of whether I print more than contracted to avoid charges for excesses.
- Replacement Instant Ink cartridges may take several days to arrive
- HP Instant Ink Spain ships the ink cartridges through standard shipping. It could take up to 10 days before a new set of cartridges arrives.
- Because HP Instant Ink Spain keeps a history of ink consumption, it can anticipate when it thinks you will run out and will send you the ink in advance.
- HP Instant Ink Spain is based on its cartridges having enough ink to «print twice the average number of pages of the plan you have contracted.
- This works quite well for someone who prints from time to time. In this case the shipping time will probably not be a problem.
- But if you’re working on a high-volume print job, you may want to speed up the delivery of your ink cartridges.
- Do you need an ink cartridge urgently? HP Instant Ink Spain offers express shipping, but with an additional charge.
- HP Instant Ink cartridges also dry
- Yes, it is true, HP Instant Ink cartridges do not have super-powers and they also dry, like ordinary cartridges.
- It has ever happened to all of us that the need arises to print something urgent, a last minute job and then we remember our printer but the cartridges are dry.
- The solution is simple, we run to the cartridge store, but this time we will not be simply buying a cartridge … we will be paying twice to print.
HP Instant Ink: our opinion
Instant Ink is a different way of paying for what we print. We change the punctual and controlled payment for a mandatory and recurring monthly payment.
If you have very clear and controlled the number of pages you print monthly, the volume of your print jobs are homogeneous (you do not print 1 or two pages and one day you do 50) and your prints are heavily loaded with ink (many images or photographs) you could give it a try.
If your prints are not regular in time, you have the printer stopped seasonally but you need it to print when you need it and you do not want to punish with another receipt plus your checking account … our advice is that you buy the cartridge that best suits your needs only when you need it.
We also do not advise it when the printing volume is high, imagine that in the plan of 700 pages per month, one month we have the need to print 50% more than usual (1050 pages), we would be paying almost double that month 37.49 € instead of 19.99 €